Sleep Info

Johns Hopkins researchers report the unexpected presence of a type of neuron in the brains of mice that appears to play a central role in promoting sleep by turning ‘off’ wake-promoting neurons. The newly identified brain cells, located in a part of the hypothalamus called the zona incerta, they say, could offer novel drug targets…
Read more »

Not sleeping the correct amount has a lot of downsides, including obesity, heart disease, and reduced mental capacity.  Add another possible side effect: increased risk-taking. Young adults have a natural sleep requirement of about nine hours a day on average.  Older adults need seven-and-a-half hours. According to studies, however, about one-third of the persons in…
Read more »

When you have rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, you dream.  But, according to a new study, individuals who get less REM sleep may have a greater risk of developing dementia. There are five stages of sleep. Stage one is light sleep. Stage two is when the body begins to prepare for deeper sleep, including stages…
Read more »

With school back in session (or nearly back in session) across the country, sleep for students is a big issue around many households.  Leading pediatrics and sleep associations agree that teens shouldn’t start school before 8:30 a.m.  However, a lot of parents are not on board for changes to fix the problem. A new study…
Read more »

If you’re the type who regularly gets less than six hours of sleep, you may as well be drunk most of the time. According to new research from a Canada-based health firm, being awake for 18 hours results in the same cognitive impairment people get from being drunk.  This is so severe that driving while sleep…
Read more »

Across the United States, students in grades K through 12 are getting ready to go back to school.  In fact, a few school systems have already started.  One of the tougher things as a parent is getting your child off the “sleep as long as you want” routine that happens in the summer, and onto…
Read more »

A UK study has found that children who regularly sleep just one hour less than the recommended amount had higher risk factors for type 2 diabetes, including higher levels of blood glucose and insulin resistance. The recommended sleep duration for a 10 year old is 10 hours. “These findings suggest increasing sleep duration could offer…
Read more »

Computer analysis of oxygen levels in the blood during sleep could — by itself — provide an easy, relatively inexpensive and sufficiently reliable way to determine which children who snore habitually could benefit from a diagnosis and treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. This approach was most accurate for children with severe apnea. Because of the…
Read more »

Binge-watching is a great way for young adults to catch up on multiple episodes of their favorite television series like “The Walking Dead” or “Game of Thrones,” but it comes at a price. New research by the University of Michigan and the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research in Belgium found that higher binge-viewing frequency…
Read more »

While babies sleep, astonishing processes take place in their brains.  Those processes, according to new research, may include learning to distinguish language from random noises. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Germany observed that babies succeed in associating a meaning with a word between the age…
Read more »